Cues, also called billiard cues, pool cues, snooker cues, or carom cues, are employed in the games of billiards, pool and similar table games. Players use the cue, which typically has a handle end and a tip end, for hitting a hard cue ball into other balls. The tip end of the cue conventionally comprises a ferrule made of plastic or metal and a tip that becomes worn or even breaks due to use over time. Cue sticks utilize a variety of materials in their construction. In particular, the tip of a cue stick, which is used to strike a ball during a billiards game, is typically made of a different type of material (e.g., leather or linen phenolic) from the actual shaft construction of the cue stick (e.g., wood). The tip and ferrule assembly in the prior art is constantly in need of repair, particularly the tip held in place by the ferrule. As a result, various methods have been developed for attaching the tip to the remainder of a cue stick.
In the prior art, the tip of a cue stick is often attached to a shaft using a plug made of wood or plastic. Specifically, the shaft of the cue stick, at the distal end to which the tip is attached, has a cavity into which the plug is inserted. The tip is attached to the shaft by contact, through adhesive, with the tip end of the shaft and contact of the plug with the sides of the cavity. Repeated ball strikes by the tip over the life of the cue stick tend to weaken the bonding of the tip, resulting in eventual detachment of the tip from the remainder of the cue stick. This problem is especially prominent when the tip is directly bonded to a composite shaft surface because of the incompressibility of the composite material relative to the tip material. If a plug is not used, in the case where the tip is attached to the distal end of the shaft, the unequal loading of force on the tip causes especially high wear. Even linen phenolic tips exhibit substantial compressibility under the force necessary to strike a cue ball during a break shot.
In addition, the plug tends to increase the weight of the cue stick near the tip end, accentuating a phenomenon known as cue ball deflection. When a player imparts English to a cue ball by striking the cue ball away from its center of mass, as discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,162,128, the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated herein by reference, increased weight at the tip end of a shaft accentuates the deflection of a struck cue ball during off-center ball strikes.